The Path To Becoming A Devops Engineer
DevOps Engineer is one of the most in-demand jobs with no signs of slowing down. In the last 3-4 years, the demand for DevOps Engineers has increased by 40-45%, and the number is rapidly growing. At the same time, DevOps is a challenging job that requires a vast skill set, experience, and in-depth knowledge in the field.
Thereâs no doubt that DevOps demand will only be increasing. So, if youâre planning to choose DevOps as a career, then youâre on the right track. We will provide you with all the info you need to know regarding how to become a DevOps Engineer from scratch.
Get Certified On Cloud
When I say Get Certified, please do not use the exam dumps to pass the certification. It adds significantly less value to you. It may be useful for the organization to show the clients that they have certified cloud engineers.
Most of the public cloud market share is currently owned by AWS. Here is the latest report from Statista.
Pick any one public cloud, preferably AWS, and learn about all its core infrastructure services. Do hands-on on all the core services and understand how it works.
Watch AWS re-invent videos and understand how other organizations are using AWS services for hosting their applications.
Trust me, you will learn a lot from these videos, and no online training will provide that much information on how to run production workloads on AWS.
If you are planning to get certified GCP, watch their videos.
Use the certification to gauge yourself on the respective platform.
Resources:
Following are my tips on learning automation tools
Resources:
What Kind Of Code Do Devops Engineers Do
DevOps engineers aren’t involved in coding from scratch. However, they must have a basic understanding of coding and programming languages to keep a check on the software development process. Knowledge of coding languages like Python, JavaScript, Ruby, C, and Go help DevOps engineers perform their roles better.
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Understanding Version Control Systems
As a DevOps engineer, knowledge of Git and GitHub is a must. Imagine, there are so many people located in different places in the world, there may be a need to communicate for a particular reason, with people who are working on the same project but from other regions. The Version Control System makes it possible and helps in having back-ups on the remote repository. The system helps developers to roll back to the previous commits and the source codes last version if needed. It helps manage the source code for the software team by keeping track of all the code modifications. Human mistakes can be easily handled using the version control system. Some popular Version Control Tools are Git,Github,Gitlab and Bitbucket and so on.
Always Look For New Learning Opportunities
Technology is always changing. Your organization should also adapt to the latest best practices and advancements to ensure you stay ahead of the curve in the software you deliver. As part of this, a DevOps engineer should always look for the next trend so they can better advise their team on how to incorporate these into their process.
As you have seen, the DevOps roadmap is full of different technologies and concepts for you to explore. If you have the drive and passion for learning, then this roadmap should serve as a valuable guide as you start to build your expertise. Focus on the individual steps and soon you will have the skills you need to start your career as a DevOps engineer.
Originally published Nov 22, 2021 7:00:00 AM, updated November 22 2021
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Commit To Becoming An Excellent Devops Engineer
The first step in becoming a DevOps engineer is having a clear understanding of the role, including the culture. Successful DevOps engineers must communicate to team members and be willing to listen to their team. Time management and flexibility are also vital to DevOps engineering. Finding a mentor in the field can give you valuable insight into DevOps culture and day-to-day responsibilities.
What Are The Major Industries In Chicago
The city’s central location is one of the major reasons driving the expansion of many industries in Chicago. Technology, the food industry, and business services are some of Chicago’s major sectors. With the expansion of technology firms, the IT industry is becoming increasingly popular, and if you are interested in the domain of software engineering, you may take a DevOps engineer certification or course in Chicago to get yourself started.
Where Can I Find Devops Online Courses Training Certifications And Resources
There is no formal career path to becoming a DevOps engineer, according to Puppet. Typically, these professionals are either developers who become interested in deployment and network operations, or system administrators with an interest in scripting and coding and move into the development side to improve the planning of tests and deployment. These tend to be professionals who are interested in breaking out of their defined spaces and gaining a more holistic view of the technical environment, Puppet noted.
Those interested in a DevOps job should begin expanding their skills and experience to compete for these roles, Puppet recommended. This means amping up your coding skills, getting familiar with automation tools, and seeking out projects and roles that allow you to exercise soft skills like leadership and collaboration between teams.
You can click here to learn more about how to become a developer, and how to explore automation for IT infrastructure automation. Seeking out a mentor in the space can also be beneficial.
In other words, start where you are, Jeff Sussna, founder and CEO of Sussna Associates, told TechRepublic. Gaining experience with DevOps does not require a new or different management position.
Those interested in DevOps should also be someone who enjoys continuous learning and teaching, Kromhout said.
Pursue A Relevant Degree
Most DevOps engineers hold bachelor’s degrees in computer science, electronics engineering, or mathematics. Whatever program you choose, make sure it focuses on software development. While you can get an entry-level job with a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in software development will help you advance your career and expand your knowledge of coding and emerging technologies.
What type of degree should you pursue to become a Devops Engineer?
84% of people working as a Devops Engineer earned a Bachelor’s Degree
What skills do you need to be a Devops Engineer?
- Cloudformation
- Python
- Terraform
Job Positions Or Application Areas For Career In Devops
There are different job positions or application areas available for applying to DevOps Engineers. The individual can apply for a System administrator, DevOps engineer, Software tester, Automation Tester, Senior DevOps Engineer, DevOps consultant, Security engineer, Integration specialist, Release manager, DevOps architect.
These are different roles, which can be applied on the basis of the skills. There are a number of tools available that are used in the DevOps process by the organization to achieve frequent development, testing, and deployment without any failure. These job positions can be different for a different organization, sometime you will see based on the tool there are a lot of career opportunities available like JIRA administrator, JIRA developer, etc.
Tips For New Devops Engineers
1. Dont get overwhelmed by trying to learn everything
The number of technologies and tools available is staggering and it is very easy to suffer analysis paralysis and not end up doing anything at all , or learning too many things superficially.
Narrow down the concepts and technologies that you are trying to grasp, learn them well, and then apply for a junior position that exposes you to the daily tasks and issues that these tools solve.
It is impossible to be an expert on every technology and domain. Instead, learn just enough of the basics, get a job and specialise in the areas that relate to your work experience.
2. Focus on the quality of the job rather than just the money
When you first start out, dont just look at money to assess the value of a role. Instead choose jobs based on how they will contribute to your overall experience.
If its a company that gives you a lot of freedom to experiment and take proactive decisions to solve problems and learn useful technologies, then thats a winner.
3. Be proactive
When you get a job, dont sit around waiting to be assigned tickets or tasks. Ask for context, observe what needs to be improved and then be the one who takes charge and change it. This has two advantages:
4. Embrace change, but dont keep changing tools
5. Be good with people
Why Is Devops Important
When candidates understand why DevOps is important to an organization, they can better prepare for a DevOps career by aligning themselves with common goals. This begins with understanding the problems that DevOps is trying to solve, including:
- customer expectations not being met
- slow application delivery and updates
- siloes between development, operations and other stakeholders
- problems discovered too late in the development lifecycle
- applications not running correctly in all environments
- complex incident management and problem resolution and
- too many repetitive, manual tasks.
DevOps helps address these issues by improving operations throughout the application development lifecycle. Applications are delivered faster and more efficiently. Problems are easier to resolve because operations are broken into smaller steps and all team members have a stake in application delivery. By understanding what DevOps can do for an organization, candidates can better target their skill sets and adjust their mindsets toward a DevOps way of thinking.
Contribute To The Open Source Community
Another great way to gain experience is to contribute to open source projects. Students and young professionals often aren’t aware of the value of contributing to open source projects, havenât considered it, or maybe think that you need high-level developer skills to contribute.
Additionally, many open source projects often have engaged communities that are invested in helping new contributors learn and grow their skills. This set of unique characteristics makes contributing to open source projects a great starting point for people from diverse backgrounds.
GitLab is an open core platform with a vibrant community. We have over 10,000 merge requests from the wider community with an average of 250 contributors per month. You can contribute to GitLab in three ways:
- Fix bugs
- Add to documentation
- Translate our docs and products to different languages
We make contributing very easy and accessible to first-time contributors. We even label each issue with good for new contributors. Our quarterly hackathons enable you to network with our community, meet merge request coaches, attend meetups, and win sweet swag prizes. For more, check out our Gitter channel for contributors.
Apply For A Devops Engineer Internship
Whether you’re about to complete your bachelor’s degree or begin your postgraduate studies, it’s a good idea to start applying for DevOps engineer internships. DevOps interns typically build tools that support software development teams, test applications, and research new technologies. Very often, an internship can turn into a permanent position. In any case, an internship is a great way to gain practical experience and develop your professional network.
Multiple Opportunities In The Profession
With a prevalent skills shortage within the DevOps recruitment market, and thousands of jobs across the UK requiring DevOps or platform engineering experience, pursuing a DevOps career presents you with endless job opportunities.
Mat Knutton, Head of Permanent Technology Recruitment at Robert Walters Manchester comments, It is now more difficult than ever to source top talent. Demand for DevOps professionals far outstretching supply with approximately only 25,000 to 30,000 currently working in the UK. DevOps Engineers are currently a highly sought-after commodity.
As a DevOps Engineer, there are opportunities for you to work in any company across the IT sector. Start-ups within the industry are looking to integrate a DevOps model into their business straight away, and consultancies and large technology multinationals are creating new DevOps Engineer roles to strengthen their current tech teams.
Why Early Exposure To Devops Is Important
By learning DevOps early on in their education, students can drastically shorten the typical six-years-or-more timeline to becoming a DevOps professional. In our GitLab for Education Survey, 40% of student respondents answered that DevOps is critical for workforce readiness and 45% viewed the ability to build a portfolio and record of contributions as a top benefit of using DevOps while in school.
Students and young professionals learning to code with the same approach they will use in the industry gives them a jump on their careers and makes the transition from the classroom to a DevOps culture that much easier. It can also help to accelerate the digital transformation as newly onboarded employees begin to spread the benefits of iterating faster, innovating together, and increasing deployment velocity.
Hereâs how to get a headstart on learning DevOps.
How Do I Get Started In A Devops Career
There’s no single formula for how candidates get started in DevOps careers, but here are a few guidelines to help get the process started.
DevOps is all about building cross-discipline teams, moving beyond comfort zones and prioritizing communication and collaboration over siloed thinking and behavior, which are skills that can benefit any technology worker. DevOps professionals must be open to new ideas and willing to continuously learn and improve how they approach application development and delivery. The DevOps methodology is still relatively young and continues to evolve and mature. There are no formal career paths to becoming a DevOps professional, but there are plenty of opportunities for those willing to make the necessary commitment.
Next Steps
Ways To Make Yourself Marketable As A Devops Engineer
The DevOps career path is not only one of the most profitable, but also one of the most personally satisfying among the many career branches of IT today. According to a salary survey last year by Incapsula, median DevOps salaries for those with the right skills are hitting anywhere between $104,000 and $129,230, depending on the size of the team. Compare that to some median figures calculated by Payscale.com for traditional non-DevOps IT roles, and the earning differential is stark:
Median Salary by Job PayScale.com provides a “cost of living” salary calculator, shown above, designed to help IT professionals in their moves between different regions in the US. For more information, see this link from PayScale.
Meanwhile, the most recent Puppet Labs State of DevOps report shows that job satisfaction is proving to be a big boon for the kinds of high-performing IT shops that budding DevOps engineers aspire to joinyou know, the ones whose employees are more than twice as likely to recommend their organizations as a great place to work.
Earn Some Industry Credentials
After getting your feet wet and building skills on your own, you may also be interested in adding some more formal credentials to your resume. Courses and certificate programs are a great way to add to your degree or work on professional development early in your career. Certifications are generally achieved after gaining some hands-on experience and working in the field.
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DevOps courses. Most online learning platforms, such as Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning have some form of DevOps course. For example, LinkedIn Learning has a free DevOps foundations course.
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DevOps certifications. If you have some experience under your belt and are interested in a more formal path, a DevOps certification could be of interest to you. DevOps certification is an accredited credential that is earned by demonstrating some specific skills and subject matter that are required to work in the DevOps profession. These credentials are earned by taking courses, passing assessments, and participating in performance reviews, or providing work samples. DevOps certifications can be specific to a certain tool, such as the Docker Certified Associate or Kubernetes Certification. Amazon Web Services, or AWS, also offers a Certified DevOps Engineer Exam. Some DevOps certifications are more tool- and platform-agnostic such as those offered by the DevOps Institute.
Kubernetes And Cloud Native Associate
The KCNA exam tests both your knowledge and skills in Kubernetes and in cloud-native ecosystems as a whole. If you want to work in cloud-native technologies, youll find this certification extremely helpful. You will be tested on deploying applications using kubectl commands, Kubernetes architecture, the cloud-native landscape and projects, and principles of cloud-native security. This is a 90-minute online multiple-choice exam and the only Kubernetes exam that is theoretical.
A Clear Understanding Of Devops
The first thing you should focus your attention on is an understanding of DevOps. However, this is also one of the most neglected factors when it comes to choosing a DevOps career in 2019. When you are pursuing a career in DevOps, it is imperative to know exactly what DevOps is and what it is not! DevOps is a movement or culture shift in application or software development.
It emphasizes the need for better and improved communication and collaboration. DevOps aims at leveraging these improvements for delivering high-quality software with better speed and reliability. You can also assume DevOps as an automation process for quick and secure software development. The only difference you would find in DevOps is that all stakeholders are involved in the development process.
When you are starting your DevOps career as a fresher, you should also take note of what does not qualify as DevOps. DevOps is not an individual or a particular job role or title. It does not involve using a specific set of tools or renaming your operations team as a DevOps team. As we discussed here, DevOps is a cultural shift or change in paradigm. It presents a productive and cost-effective approach that deviates from the traditional precedents in software development. If you aspire to land your dream job in cloud, we recommend you to search for AWS jobs near me and find the right job for you.
Must Read:List of Top 10 DevOps Tools in 2019
